-A few know they want to join (5) and a few know they
will definitely not want to join (4)

Non-member interests:

-Non-members are very interested in projects (9), with 4
people specifically wanting building related projects

-Fields trips are popular (7) while speakers are less
popular (2)

Most people who were not members had time conflicts or were
too busy, and many of these people will probably have the same conflicts next
semester. Unlike members, non-members are more interested in projects and less
interested in speakers.

-Overall, people enjoyed the group projects. People do
have concerns that the advanced and beginning students were not balanced
evenly, there was inconsistent attendance, parts were too weak, and the
projects felt too rushed and did not allow enough time for planning

-People would like to see more building projects,
programming related projects, roller coasters, and 3D printers

Club Management:

-Majority of people visited the website (7 Yes, 1 No)

-Majority of people are somewhat interested in being a
club officer (1 Yes, 0 No, 6 Maybe)

-Overall, people were happy with the efficiency of the
club’s management

-People would have liked more public interaction and
events, bigger projects and contests, and study sessions

We were going to have more speakers, but we were so busy with the projects that we did not have time. The last speaker was going to be a former student who had recently transferred, but this was pushed off to next semester. We wanted to do more tours, but many tours cost money or require a lot of planning. Some people want more long-term projects. This can be challenging for a club with members that have very different interests and amounts of time to spend. Also, larger projects can cost more and require more technical knowledge. A single large project with several small and medium size projects may be best. People want more programming. There is a computer science club, so the club may want to team up with the computer science club for help. The website was viewed more than I thought, but I do not think a lot of time and effort should be invested in the website because its functionality and viewership are limited.

Wednesday, November 28, 2012

This weekend the club has an option of (1) going to the Tech Shop in Menlo Park for a tour, or (2) going to the Tech Shop in San Francisco for a tour and then going to the SOMArt Come Out and Play Festival. We will take a vote at this week's meeting.

The SOMArt Come Out and Play Festival is a free public event, consisting of over 20 games played in the SOMA area. It has two locations: 934 Brannan St. (between 8th and 9th), and Manalo Draves Park (Folsom and Sherman St.) It runs from 12 - 5 pm.

Here are some of the events:

Propinquity (2–4pm):
a mixed-media game designed to evoke both dancing and fighting that
uses full body interaction and the use of sound and game play mechanics
to produce an intensely social and physical experience.

Obtain the Briefcase (1–3pm): a street game of running, chasing, hiding, subterfuge, and the fight to locate one crucial briefcase.

Slothchase(1–3pm): a turn-based tag game of strategy and skill that slows players to a crawl as they navigate the cityscape.

Third-Person Outer Body Labyrinth (3–5pm): a maze players navigate wearing video goggles to dislocate the sense of sight to a point high above.

Sixteen Tons (12–5pm): a gallery-based physical and social strategy game that takes real money to win.

WANTED! (12–5pm): an SMS-based work of interactive street fiction focused on the adventures of a wild cowgirl.

Lemonopoly (12–5pm): a real-world lemon trading game which pits Bay Area cities against one another to see who can share the most lemons

Hearst Collection (12–5pm): an in-gallery art heist game in which players navigate a laser maze to steal pieces from the Hearst family.

Doodle Defense (12–5pm):an low-tech, whiteboard-based tower defense game in which players race to draw game pieces to beat the onslaught of bugs.

The Board Game Lounge (12–5pm): a
replication of your living room, but with brand-new board games made by
local designers--the handmade Berlin Wall Game, The Cove, and Toy
Fight, and the high-tech Sifteo cubes.

Monday, November 19, 2012

The bridge building process continues. To help understand which bridges might do better, we will have a brief discussion of truss analysis. You can read the complete overview under the tab "Project 3: Bridge" above.

Wednesday, November 7, 2012

Objective:
Construct a bridge that has the largest load to bridge weight ratio.

Materials:

Corrugated Cardboard

Glue

Rules:

1.The bridge must
span a 4 foot gap.

2.The bridge can be
no more than 6 inches wide and 3 inches below the height of the testing
surface.

3.There is no limit
to it being longer than 4 feet and there is no limit to its height above the
testing surface.

4.The bridge will
be loaded with a rope attached to a metal plate that must sit on the bed of the
bridge. The bridge must have a hole 1 inch in diameter and a flat surface of 3
x 3 inches to support the plate. The plate will be placed on the bridge at the
center of the 4 foot gap and at the height of the test surface

Friday, November 2, 2012

The catapult project is finished. The catapults will be judged at a yet to be decided future meeting. Members may continue to work on the project during their own time up until the projects are judged. The club will now move on to a new project.

The CNC project was approved to move forward by the club's members. Parts will be purchased, and as soon as they arrive, the project will start on a Friday and continued to the next day, Saturday. This will allow for the project to be completed as soon as possible.

- Driver should bring a valid drivers license, photo ID or passport.
- Plan on arriving to SLAC 20-30 minutes prior to your scheduled tour time.
- Maps and driving directions to SLAC can be found at http://www6.slac.stanford.edu/maps_directions.aspx
After arriving at SLAC, you will proceed to parking lot C or E, park
your vehicle, and then proceed on foot to the SLAC Visitors Center, Bldg
43, next to Panofsky Auditorium.
Parking at SLAC is free.

Members have asked about how much the current and voltage change when the analogwrite function is used. To test the current and voltage, I connected a multimeter to the Arduino across pin 9 and ground, and ran the following code:

"In celebration of SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory’s 50th
Anniversary, the laboratory, in cooperation with the Bay Area Science
Festival, will open its doors for Unveiling the Universe Day.
Activities will be targeted to high school students and above, however
all those over the age of 12 are
welcome to explore our world-class research facility on October 27,
2012 from 1:00 PM- 6:00 PM. Registration is required.

"Participants will learn about the cutting-edge science underway at
SLAC in fields ranging from physics and chemistry to astrophysics and
materials science that is revealing the universe at its smallest and
largest scales, at its fastest and most extreme.

• "Special tours of the SLAC Research areas including our world famous two mile long linear accelerator and the
lab's advanced X-ray facilities will be provided.
• "SLAC scientists will also share how we explore the cosmos, from
the origins of the universe to the nature of dark matter and dark energy
in our unique
3-D Visualization Center"

Rules:
1. The machine must be stationary.
2.
The machine must operate without human aid – only the pushbutton and
potentiometer may be touched in order to launch the ball.
3. The
machine should be able to re-load and launch a second ball without the
need of human aid other than touching the pushbutton or potentiometer.

"Last month, SLAC Labs (the Stanford Linear Accelerator Center) reached
its golden anniversary. After 50 years of operation the organization has
built up quite a résumé. For instance, it claims six different Nobel
prize-winning scientists for research that discovered two different
fundamental particles. And today the facility keeps on churning out
science: 1,000-plus papers come out of SLAC each year from the roughly
3,400 scientific professionals from across the world that utilize the
facility."